


Goodnight, Old Friend

by smoakoverwatch



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Grief, I didn't want this either, I'm so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 12:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11760225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smoakoverwatch/pseuds/smoakoverwatch
Summary: Later, when feeling returns to him, Oliver will be angry. He’ll blame his lack of foresight, his failure to learn from the past, his own recklessness, his timing. But it won’t change the facts.The fact being that on this mission, he watches John Diggle die.





	Goodnight, Old Friend

**Author's Note:**

> You know when something is just so unthinkable that your brain just rejects it immediately? That was me when the idea popped into my head without permission. Well, first I thought about how I would react as a viewer. And then... um.... It snowballed. 
> 
> Anyway I've always naively hoped that some of what I write would find its way into canon, but this is never, ever allowed to happen. I love John Diggle a lot. Like, a lot a lot a lot. 
> 
> Originally, I was going to have both Oliver and Felicity's point of views but I couldn't bring myself to do it, so I hope you like this short piece.

It happens all too fast.

Later, when feeling returns to him, Oliver will be angry. He’ll blame his lack of foresight, his failure to learn from the past, his own recklessness, his timing. But it won’t change the facts.

The fact being that on this mission, he watches John Diggle die.

When his body goes limp and falls onto the pavement, nothing registers. He hears Felicity’s horrified scream next to him, and her tablet fall to the ground. He sees Rene and Dinah react instantly, running up to him and scanning for the offending bullet. They try in vain to stop the bleeding, but eventually their frantic movements slow down, and their arms fall limp to their sides.

He walks over slowly, as if to delay the inevitable. His boots crunch against broken glass, it soon becomes the only thing he can feel.

Felicity kneels next to John. She’s crouched over. She’s crying. She reaches over and closes his eyes, and solidifies one of Oliver’s worst nightmares.

He’s gone.

Police sirens wail in the distance. Cars from the next street over whir against the road. The train from Central City is passing through and chimes loudly just a mile south of them. It’s all so wrong. Oliver feels like the very world around him should have stopped turning, as if to pay respect to the greatest man who ever walked it.

Finally, Oliver falls to his knees next to Felicity. Her glasses have long since been discarded, and she’s doubled over as her sobs turn into retching gasps.

She notices him. She reaches up, one small arm wrapping around leather and pulling him closer. He assumes she’s turned to him for comfort until he sees his own breath coming out in frantic white clouds and he realizes he’s crying too. She holds onto him as much for his benefit as her own.

He feels Felicity shake her head next to him. “Oliver,” she gasps out, “not him. It was never supposed to be him.”

Her sobs pick up again, wracking through her body and she falls forward. Her free hand lands on John’s chest and her fingers curls into his jacket. “Please, John,” she cries, “please.”

Oliver’s own hands curl into fists at his sides, and he presses down on his bottom lip as if to force the tears that started falling without his permission away.

Every part of his body shuts down. The numbness settles into his bones with a chilling familiarity. He’s been here before. He’s been here more times in the past decade than most can say they have in their entire lives.

So he knows that the part of him that screams and wants to collapse has to be pushed down for now.

They’re standing in the middle of a street. The people who – who did _this_ are long gone. The authorities will be showing up soon. They need to move.

So, with a disturbing amount of familiarity, he pushes himself up on his knees and encourages the others to do the same.

* * *

The morning of his funeral comes far too soon for Oliver’s liking.

After their alarms go off, Oliver and Felicity spend just a few moments in bed, ignoring what’s to come and keeping each other close.

Neither one of them have slept at all in the two days that passed. They spent the night before simply holding onto each other desperately, not needing words to articulate the pain.

Felicity is first to get up and move the washroom. Oliver calls out after her, his voice hoarse from speaking for the first time in hours.

She turns to look at him with tired eyes, as if she already knows what to expect from him.

He casts his eyes down, ashamed. “I… I can’t do this today. I don’t know how to – to –”

She walks back and sits at the edge of the bed.

“I know.” She says simply. “I know it’s hard. I know it’s easier to hope to deny it for as long as we can. But Oliver, we have to do this. We –” her voice breaks and she looks at her hands again, “we owe him that much.”

He nods, reaching over and squeezing her shoulder gently. 

She gets up again and he follows this time, both of them getting ready to tackle the hardest day of their lives.

* * *

The funeral is like what Oliver expects any military funeral would look like. It feels unfamiliar and full of ceremony that doesn’t fit the John Diggle he knew so well.

Lyla sits in the front, holding onto her son’s hand tightly. They speak to her in soft voices. They console her and hug her. Oliver opens his mouth to apologize, but the words get lost along the way in his throat when he realizes he can’t meet her eyes. One day, he vows, he’ll be able to get there.

Oliver and Felicity sit with their hands clasped tightly together. The team is in the row behind them. Lyla speaks. People Oliver doesn’t know speak, and he feels ashamed at these people who share stories about his life. There are classmates, childhood friends, people he met at his time in the army, demonstrating how far John Diggle’s love had extended on this earth. 

Felicity goes up before him.

Her hands are shaking as she walks to the front of the space. She has to swipe at her eyes several times before she starts speaking.

“John was… he was my best friend,” she says, her voice trembling. “That doesn’t feel like it can even _begin_ to cover it. I grew up without any siblings, but I think John was the closest thing I could ever have to an older brother.” Her blurry eyes find Oliver’s in the crowd.

“He walked me down the aisle at my wedding. He held my hand when I was going through the toughest moments in my life. He was –” she breaks off to give a watery smile. “he was the kind of person to wait out in the winter to make sure you were okay. He was the kind of person who’s heart was never too full to let you in. He made cold days warmer just by being there. He was the steadiest presence in my life.”

She looks to the side, where a casket draped in an American flag sits. “John,” the steadiness she gained as she spoke disappears completely, “I don’t know how I’m going to go on in life without you in it. All I know is that I was so lucky to have known you.”           

Oliver watches as her face crumples when she walks to her seat. She presses her lips tightly together and he knows she’s willing herself not to cry.

His hand finds hers, squeezing tightly before rising himself.

As he stands in front of a space full of strangers, his team in a quiet corner of their own, he realizes he hasn’t done this often.

He thinks back to all the times he missed out on this moment in particular. He couldn’t bring himself to speak at Tommy’s funeral. He couldn’t manage to _get himself_ to his mother’s. His father didn’t have the luxury of a proper burial.

And though part of him tried to protest it earlier today, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he needs to be here. That John deserves this, at least.

“John Diggle was,” his throat feels tight as a myriad of emotions bubble to the surface. He pauses. His eyebrows furrow as he looks off to one spot on the grass and he shakes his head. “He was the best man I’d ever known. He was more than just my friend. He was my brother.” His eyes find Felicity’s in the crowd, seeking her comfort as he realizes this is far, far harder than anything he’s ever had to do in life. “Words can’t do justice what John’s friendship, his loyalty, his – his belief in me meant.” His voice cracks and he has to look down again. “The world is a worse place than it was yesterday, for not having you in it, John. I’ll miss you, brother.”

He intended to go on for longer, but it becomes all too much when he sits down again. His tie feels too tight. The air is too warm. His breathing steadies out but his knee bounces up and down in agitation. He can’t stay here for much longer.

Felicity’s hand slips into his once more, and brings both onto his knee and forces it to still. She looks at Lyla sitting ahead and back at him, silently reminding him why they need to stay.

So they do.

Oliver listens on as a few others speak. John gets honored and thanked for his service to his country. The flag that sat on his casket gets folded carefully and handed to Lyla.

John Diggle is laid to rest. The wind keeps blowing, the world keeps on moving.

* * *

Like with any kind of grief, things only get better with time.

Not a day goes by where Oliver doesn’t remember his friend, or yearn for his sarcastic drawl and wisdom once more. But eventually, he stops reaching for a presence that won’t be there anymore.

He and Felicity tell each other they’ll visit him often, and they make good on that promise. At least once a month they make time, sometimes together and sometimes individually, to lay flowers on his grave and talk his friend on what life is like without him. 

About a year and a half later, they start bringing Jonathan Queen along with them, to introduce the baby to his namesake, and promise that their friend’s memory will live on with them.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> * I'd like to note I know little to nothing about military funerals and tried my best to research. I'm sorry if I got any of the details around that wrong, but I tried to keep it vague in parts I was uncertain about. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. 
> 
> twitter - smoakoverwatch  
> tumblr - overwatchandarrow


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